Hmmm... http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickung...dicine-and-mandates-health-insurance-in-1798/ http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2011/01/founding_fathers_favored_gover.html
I don't have a problem helping Sick and Disabled Seamen. I mean, come on, they've had to fight Captain Nemo, the Kraken and endure Neptune's wrath. Oh, and don't forget that giant octopus from "It Came From Beneath The Sea". So, if anyone needs our help, it's definitely seamen. It's all the bums out there I don't want to support.
The way I read that, it is the same as what we have been doing for 40 plus years with Medicare. The sailor's incomes were taxed and the government used that money to pay for their healthcare needs. I would not equate that to the health insurance mandates that are in dispute today which would require people to purchase health insurance from a private company.
While there were private care facilities that accepted government vouchers, most of the care was provided at government run hospitals. So it doesn't sound very much like Medicare to me. More like the VA perhaps. Be that as it may it is all very Socialist and totally at odds with the principles on which this country was founded. I wonder if Adams and the boys knew how horribly un-American this whole concept was. I'm sure if we could send a load of 2011 Republicans back to 1798 they'd set The Founders straight.
Actually...I think it is interesting that they chose to make only the people who were going to receive the services pay a tax for the services. This doesn't read like a tax on everyone to provide care for the sailors. Just the people who were to receive the services were taxed for it. The only other funds apparently were to come from people who wanted to donate to it. Which is quite a different way of thinking than most government programs today. As for the rest, I think there is no doubt that the government can tax us and also that it can provide healthcare services, directly and indirectly, and run and own hospitals. It already does every one of those things. But, I still think that is different than saying one has to buy something from a private company.
Was there a constitutional challenge against the Act For The Relief Of Sick And Disabled Seamen? If so - I would want to read the US Supreme Court Ruling before commenting further on the issue.
No, apparently not. But I imagine that members of Congress back in 1798 were less adept at sniffing out Socialism than so many of their 21st Century counterparts are and they probably had no idea that what they had done violated every principle that they had so recently enshrined in the Constitution.
Ya know it sorta makes you wonder why the framers of the Constitution thought a Supreme Court was even necessary?
